The pathology report came back today and, among all the scar tissue, they found a malignant tumor .06 cm (about 1/6th of an inch) in size. Right now, we have very mixed emotions.
We are both happy that Ernie's doctors made the correct and, faced with Ernie's scleroderma, courageous call to do the surgery. We are also happy the surgeon made the difficult decision to sacrifice Ernie's shoulder nerve (it was running right through the middle of the mass) to get all of the potentially cancerous tissue. In fact, Ernie's skin was so difficult to work with, the surgeon told us he took a more generous amount of tissue than normal so neither of them would have to go through this again. We are especially happy because Ernie seems to be recovering well and studies show that people who have "rescue surgery" for head and neck cancer actually have a lower five year mortality rate than those who don't have it. It seems that scans don't always detect these very small tumors, which allows them to spread. We are very grateful that this tiny tumor was discovered and removed before it could do irreparable damage.
Ernie is not so happy that he will now certainly be required to continue the dreaded PET scans. Our hope is that they may be less frequent than the quarterly schedule we have been on. The only other unknown is whether there will be more radiation. Our surgeon will present the results of the pathology report to the Tumor Board tomorrow and we will see what they have to say.
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